Providentia

Harry Thaw and the Law

Newspapers across the United States called it the “Crime of the Century” (never mind that the 20^th century was still only six years young at the time). 

On June 24, 1906, when Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw shot prominent New York architect Stanford White in Madison Square Garden’s rooftop theatre, it sparked a media sensation that would grip New York for months to come.  

Harry Kendall Thaw certainly didn’t seem like your usual murderer (not on the surface at least).  Born in 1871 to one of Pittsburgh’s most prominent families, he was the principal heir to his father’s coal and railroad fortune.  That he was openly paranoid and violent from an early age hardly seemed to matter.   His family money allowed him to coast through studies at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University.  He was finally expelled after his arrest for chasing a cab driver through the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts with a shotgun (Thaw insisted it was unloaded).   After his expulsion, Harry drifted through high society and experimented extensively with various drugs including cocaine and morphine (he is widely credited with inventing the speedball). 

At some point during his stay in New York City, Harry Thaw first met Stanford White.   White was one of the prominent architects of his age and had designed some of New York’s most famous buildings (including Madison Square Garden).    It was in 1902 that White first met chorus girl, Evelyn Nesbitt.   Having come to New York a year earlier to study modeling,  Evelyn had made a name for herself by modeling for Charles Dana Gibson and being featured in his masterpiece, The Eternal Question.   Capitalizing on her fame as a “Gibson girl”, Evelyn then went on to star on Broadway as a “Floradora girl”.     When Stanford White introduced himself to her, he managed to spirit her away to one of the various love nests that he maintained in downtown New York for his romantic conquests.    After getting Evelyn drunk, he and Evelyn had sex.  While White claimed that the sex was completely consensual,  Evelyn would later insist that it had been rape.

Whatever happened between them, White and Nesbitt continued to see each other for years afterward despite her taking on other lovers (including actor John Barrymore).   When Harry Thaw first saw Evelyn Nesbitt, White warned her of his violent temper and she stayed clear of him for a time.  After Harry impressed her with his wealth and generosity (including visiting her in hospital after she had an appendicitis attack), Evelyn  was won over.   Since she had not completely broken off her relationship with Stanford White, Harry  saw him as a rival and was furious when he learned that White had warned Evelyn about him.  

After White backed off, Harry Thaw proposed marriage to Evelyn and insisted that she accept, even after she admitted that she was no longer a virgin thanks to Stanford White.  While Thaw was furious at the revelation, he still insisted that Evelyn agree to marry him and even took her to an isolated German castle where he physically abused her with a bullwhip.   Evelyn only agreed to marry Harry after his mother convinced her that the marriage would curb her son's "eccentricities".   Harry Thaw and Evelyn Nesbitt were finally married on April 4, 1905 and moved to Pittsburgh where they lived with his mother.

Whatever hopes Evelyn and her mother-in-law had of curbing Harry's violent impulses ended when he and Evelyn visited New York in 1906.    On June 24, while they were on their way to the premiere of Mam'zelle Champagne at the outdoor Madison Square Garden Roof Theater,  Harry and Evelyn spotted Stanford White at the nearby Cafe Martin and later at the very same premier that they were attending.    After taking his wife back to the hotel,  Harry disappeared for a time and reappeared wearing a heavy black overcoat.   Despite the hot weather, he refused to take off the overcoat and insisted on wearing it at the premiere.    After leaving his own seat during the performance, he wandered through the theater and was seen approaching White's table several times.   Finally, during the show's finale, Harry whipped out a pistol and fired three shots into White's face screaming, "You've ruined my life!" (other witnesses suggested that he might have said "You've ruined my wife!").     Stanford White was killed instantly although the other theatre patrons, believing that the shooting was part of the show, didn’t react at first.  

After the shooting, Harry walked out of the theatre with his gun still out in the open.  When Evelyn asked her husband what he had done, he calmly replied that he had probably saved her life.   Police quickly caught up to him and he was arrested without incident.  On being arraigned at the Jefferson Market Courthouse, he was then transferred to the Manhattan Detention Complex (a.k.a.  The Tombs) where he was held for trial. 

Mary Thaw spared no expense in defending her son.   Spending astronomical sums of money (up to $1,000,000 in 1906 dollars according to some sources), she hired a team of defense attorneys and even staged a play featuring characters named Harold Daw and Stanford Black that twisted the facts of the case to her son's benefit.  Most notoriously, she persuaded Evelyn to testify that Stanford White had threatened her and that her husband was simply protecting her.   In return, Evelyn would receive a divorce from Harry along with a million-dollar divorce settlement.   Evelyn played her part beautifully (she was an actress, after all) and helped secure her husband a hung jury for his first trial in 1907.   

Unfortunately for Harry, shooting one of New York's most prominent citizens in front of witnesses ensured enough outrage to force a second trial.   On the advice of his attorney, Marvin Littleton, Harry Thaw changed his plea to guilty and testified that he had killed White after experiencing a "brainstorm"  (a form of temporary insanity).    Evidence was also presented by the defense that there was a history of insanity in Harry's family (which likely didn't please his mother and sister).  Harry Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced  to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Fishkill, New York (now the Fishkill Correctional Facility).  

Despite Harry having almost complete freedom while serving his sentence, he was apparently not satisfied with that.  On August 17, 1913, with the help of one of the hospital staff, Harry Thaw walked out of the asylum and arranged to be smuggled across the border to Sherbrooke, Quebec.    He and his lawyer fought extradition but he was eventually returned to the United States and returned to the hospial.  After impressing a jury that he was sane, he was released in 1915.  

But this was hardly the last legal scrape for him, mind you.    The year after his release, Harry was charged with horsewhipping (and possibly sexually assaulting) a teenage boy named Fred Gump Junior.  Harry  escaped to Philadelphia where he was found with his throat slashed.  Although the suicide attempt failed, he was found insane by the courts again and committed to an asylum for seven years before being released in 1924.   His mother quietly settled the case with the Gump family.     After his release, Harry later went into film making and founded a movie company in Long Island although he eventually gave it all up and moved to Florida   By the time of his death from coronary thromobisis in 1947, Harry Thaw was living quietly at his home in Florida, his long history of violence well behind him.

As for Evelyn Nesbitt, she got her divorce from Harry Thaw in 1916 but never received the promised divorce settlement (Harry later left her $10,000 in his will).   While she gave birth to her only child, Russell William Thaw in 1910 and insisted that Harry was the father,  he  denied it vigorously (the baby was conceived and born while he was still in custody).   After her divorce, Evelyn remarried although this second marriage didn't last long either.  Despite other relationships (including a rumoured reconciliation with Harry Thaw), she would say shortly before her death in 1967 that Stanford White was the only man she had really loved.

The Stanford White shooting has inspired a lengthy list of fictional and non-fictional books and movies.   Harry Thaw and Evelyn Nesbitt both wrote books about their experiences although the most famous version was likely  E.L. Doctorow's book, Ragtime,  which was later adapted into a movie and a musical.    The Madison Square Gardens building designed by Stanford White was torn down in 1924 and the venue moved to its new location over Penn Station.   Although several of Stanford White's other buildings are still standing (including the Washington Square Arch in Washington Square Park picture right), no other physical traces remain of the long-ago murder that shocked New York City.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Horror of Alfred Binet

 Though French psychologist Alfred Binet is mainly remembered today as the creator of the first true intelligence test,  the Binet-Simon Scale (developed with Theodore Simon), his list of accomplishments is far more extensive than that.   A pioneer in special education, Binet drew on his experiences with his two young daughters, Margritte and Armande, to study how intelligence and problem-solving skills develop in young children.  Along with his work on intelligence though, Alfred Binet also wrote more than two hundred books and articles on a wide array of different topics, including memory, personality, sexuality, and even paranormal phenomena.  

But  Alfred Binet had another little-known side interest, one that would create a legacy that is still being felt today.   To explain this better, I'll have to provide you with a little history...

By the mid-19^th century, fans of horror became increasingly fascinated by theatrical productions that allowed theatre-goers to see and hear horror stories unfold before them.   Along with plays based on such classics as Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and Dracula came even more ambitious productions that pushed the sensitivities of theatre audiences to the very limits.   And so, the Grand Guignol tradition was born.

Beginning in 1897 when Oscar Metenier opened the Theatre du Grand Guignol in Paris’ Pigalle district, his productions often faced serious problems with censors determined to shut him down.   The name comes from "the Theatre of the Great Puppet" and specialized in a naturalistic form of horror that could be as graphic and shocking as Metenier dared to make it.  Along with blatant  references to sexual matters, many of Metenier's characters were prostitutes, vagrants, and street children showing a side of life that had been carefully hidden from polite Parisian society. But it was when Metenier stepped down and was replaced by Max Maurey in 1898 that the Grand Guignol theatre truly discovered the power that horror had over an audience.

According to legend, Maurey measured the success of his various productions by the number of people in the audience who fainted during a performance. He even hired a house doctor who tended to any patients in need (whether or not this was a real doctor seems open to question).   His greatest triumph was in discovering and promoting the plays of Andre de Lorde (later christened “the Prince of Terror.”)   From 1901 to 1926, de Lorde was the chief playwright for the Grand Guignol (despite being forced to work as a librarian during the day to make ends meet).

Of all the complex themes that de Lorde explored in his plays, the one recurring theme for which he is best known was insanity.   In an era when mental illness was becoming better understood due to the rise of psychiatry and psychology as legitimate sciences, de Lorde often drew on actual psychiatric cases to flesh out his characters.   He also explored many of the themes linked to mental illness and altered states of consciousness (including plays using exotic drugs or hallucinations as plot devices).  Much like in Edgar Allen Poe’s stories, Grand Guignol plays also showed characters teetering on the very edge of sanity as they wrestled with their own dark selves. Some stories were even set in lunatic asylums, a novel innovation at the time.   Hypnosis was also a popular theme and stories of sinister hypnotists enslaving innocent (and usually female) victims always went over well with audiences.

To ensure that his plays were as accurate as possible, Andre de Lorde began researching mental illness and soon became acquainted with Alfred Binet.  Discovering that Binet was an enthusiastic fan of Grand Guignol theatre, du Lorde quickly established a working partnership that would endure until Binet’s unexpected death in 1911.

Many of the plays de Lorde and Binet wrote together involved maniacal characters who preyed on the innocent and the unwary.   They also featured psychological themes and the graphic portrayals of sex and violence with such classics as “Les Invisibles,” “'L'Obsession,” and “'L'Expériment horrible.”   One later play, “A Crime In The House of The Insane” would be released by de Lorde in 1923 with Binet listed as co-author. All of these plays were marked by Binet’s personal experiences with mental illness as seen in his patients giving them an air of realism that had never been shown before on stage. Not surprisingly, their productions were often shut down by censors, either in France or in other countries whenever the Grand Guignol theatre company went on tour.   Despite the censorship, the Grand Guignol tradition spread to other parts of Europe and would have a powerful influence on horror in the decades that followed.

Still, Grand Guignol plays began to fade in popularity during the first three decades of the Twentieth Century.   Largely a victim of his own success,  Andre du Lorde found audiences eventually becoming jaded by the various psychological dramas being performed on stage.   At the same time, theatres  faced new competition due to the rise of the motion picture industry.   Rather than attend elaborate theatre productions, moviegoers could simply pop into the nearest movie theatre to see horror movies that were slowly matching Le Theatre du Grand Guignol for chills. 

There was also the growing competition from real-life horrors as well.   As Europe survived the first world war, the prospect of a second world war and the growing menace of Nazism and Fascism made Grand Guignol horror seem almost quaint by comparison. Certainly, many of the imaginary horrors being presented on stage could hardly match the rumours about what was happening in Nazi Germany, not to mention postwar revelations about what had been perpetrated in Dachau and Auschwitz.   By the 1950s, the age of Grand Guignol productions was effectively over as movies, and eventually television, filled the role they once played.

But Grand Guignol has not been completely forgotten.  Many of the creative elements that Andre du Lorde and Alfred Binet brought to the stage have survived to influence generations of horror fans.  If  their surviving plays seem tame by modern standards, this was only because horror audiences have come to take the thrills and chills pioneered by Lorde and Binet for granted.  

It's probably not a coincidence that French film directors and producers have become early pioneers in psychological horror with films such as Les Diaboliques (1957) and Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960).  These early French films would go on to redefine horror cinema around the world and confirm the power that psychological horror can have.

So spare a thought for Alfred Binet the next time you see films such as Psycho or The Silence of the Lambs.  His impact on modern horror has been far greater than you might think.

 

Does Sex and Violence Really Sell Products?

Ninety-eight percent of American homes have TV sets, which means the people in the other 2% have to generate their own sex and violence.  George Baylos

Why is there so much sex and violence in movies and television?   While American television and movies are far less likely to allow actual nudity than other countries, jokes and innuendos about human sexuality are a common feature despite attempts at censoring sexually explicit content.   Media studies report that well over half of all television shows contain sexual references that are meant to titillate and attract viewers.   Despite this flood of sexual content, there are still curious inconsistencies surrounding the sexual messages that we often see.  While advertisers have no problem using sex to sell everything from shampoo to hotel rooms, we are far more likely to see commercials about Viagra than birth control.   This seems like a sad state of affairs considering the popularity of "abstinence-only" programs in many parts of the country and the total refusal of many parents to provide their children with sex education information.

And then there is the violence that seems to be a major feature in most movies and television programs.  On average, children from two to eleven will spend twenty to thirty hours a week in front of a television set and this still doesn't allow for the time spent playing video games or watching movies.    Media research suggests that children will seen an average of 200,000 violent crimes and 16,000 murders by the age of eighteen.   In fact, shows aimed at children are often more violent than adult oriented television though the question of whether violent content in the media leads to violence in children is still controversial.

Whatever your views on sex and violence on television and movies, the widespread belief that sex and violence will sell products helps explain why this kind of media programming is so popular.  As former CBS and NBC programming president Jeff Sagansky once pointed out, “The number one priority in television is not to transmit quality programming to viewers, but to deliver consumers to advertisers. We aren’t going to get rid of violence until we get rid of advertisers”     Among the twenty-five most expensive television programs for advertisers in the 2014-2015 season, forty-four were rated TV-14 or TV-MA for violence and forty percent were rated TV-14 or TV-MA for sex.    

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

Revisiting the Wainuiomata Exorcism Case

In October 2007, Janet Moses, a 22-year-old mother of two children, died of drowning after a three-day "cleansing ceremony" conducted by family members trying to free her from the effects of a curse.   The family became concerned after Moses began "acting strangely" and a visiting Maori elder, Timi Rahi, told the Wellington, New Zealand family that she was the victim of a "makutu" or a traditional Maori curse.  According to the elder, the curse was due to Moses' sister who had stolen a stone lion from a local pub and which needed to be returned.    Despite the lion being returned and apparent restitution being made, Janet Moses continued acting strangely and the family decided to take stronger action.  Timi Rahi had left by this time and was apparently not asked for his help in lifting the curse.

Belief in "makutu" or witchcraft remains strong in parts of New Zealand, especially in Maori communities, and "cleansing rituals" intended to help victims of witchcraft continue to be practiced.  In Moses' case, the ceremony involved forcibly restraining her on the floor of the family's Wellington house while family members stood in a circle chanting incantations known as "karakia" to drive out evil spirits.   According to later testimony, family members then began shouting at Janet and looking into her eyes while "saying things like 'Get out', 'Leave her alone' and 'You're not going to have her."   She was then held down on the floor while her eyelids were forced open and water was poured down her face and in her eyes in an attempt to get rid of the makutu.

Several people also "leant over Janet, put their mouths over her eyeballs, and tried to suck at her eyes in an attempt, again, to remove the curse."  They poured so much water down her face and eyes that the house itself was flooded.  As the prosecutor in the case later stated, "At the time, Janet was restrained while the water was poured over her. If she called out or tried to push those pouring the water away, the restraining simply increased,"   She eventually died of drowning on October 12 after a full night of this kind of water torture.   Her father and grandfather, who had opposed the exorcism, were not present and only learned what was happening after her death.

When family members realized that she ha died, they attempted to revive her but did not call emergency services.    Several members of the family then turned their attention to a fourteen-year-old girl who had been present at the scene because they believed the evil spirit had moved into her after Janet Moses died.   The girl's eyes were reportedly gouged though she was not blinded.   Police were finally called nine hours later.   Eight family members were charged with manslaughter and assault.

The trial lasted for twenty-nine days with over a hundred witnesses being called, many of them being family members and neighbours.   According to testimony, Janet Moses had developed psychiatric problems that apparently led to her "acting like a lion" and experiencing relationship problems with her common-law husband and their two children.   Despite suggestions that she was suffering from psychiatric problems , the exorcism carried out at the local flat once owned by her deceased grandmother, apparently with Janet's full consent.   Virtually all family members who participated in the ritual came from the maternal side of her family.  Several of the accused, including aunts and cousins of Janet Moses, testified that the maternal side of the family was deeply spiritual and that cleansing houses of makutu influences was part of family tradition dating back for generations.  

Despite their beliefs, all of the family members who participated in the exorcism admitted that their actions were largely improvised since none of them really knew how to lift a makutu from a possessed person.   While the ritual is supposed to be carried out by a Maori tohunga trained in lifting makutu, the practice became illegal with the passing of the Tohunga Suppression Act of 1907 which was only repealed in 1962.   Though Maori tribal elders also testified during the trial about the rituals associated with lifting makutu curses as well as the spiritual practices associated with Maori cultural beliefs, none of them had been consulted on how to remove the makutu from the deceased.

After the lengthy trial, it took twenty hours for jurors to convict five of the eight family members guilty.    None of the convicted were given prison sentences but were instead received community sentences.    The judge also ordered that all of the convicted take part in  programs to become more educated in Maori cultural matters.    Janet's paternal grandfather, Charlie Moses, who had been one of the family members to oppose the exorcism, expressed satisfaction with the sentences.  "We've made our peace with them," he said.  "They didn't know what they were doing, even though I told them not to go down that road. They chose to do it anyway. For that mistake ... they're going to pay for the rest of their lives. I wish them well all the same." 

The trial and its outcome also meant major publicity over Maori spiritual rituals, especially  concerning the lifting of curses.   Many New Zealanders had never heard of makutu before the trial began but  the conviction of the "Wainuiomata five" sparked a renewed interest in Maori traditions.   A coroner's inquest was eventually held  in 2010 which recommended that families considering exorcism rituals for the lifting of makutu consult tribal elders before doing anything potentially dangerous.   While makutu lifting continues to be part of Maori cultural practices,  the legacy of the Janet Moses' death still remains.

Postscript:  This year, a new feature film titled, Belief:  The Possession of Janet Moses, has been scheduled for release at the New Zealand International Film Festival.   Intended as a feature-length documentary, the new film is intended to shed light on the circumstances that led to Janet's death and includes witness interviews an re-enactments to show viewers how such a tragedy could occur.  The film's director, Emmy-award winning director David Stubbs, describes the film as an "extraordinary true story of how both love and fear could drive a kiwi family to unwittingly kill one of their own.”    Janet Moses' extended family did not participate in the making of the film.

 

 

Death of a Movie Star (Part Two of Two)

Continued from Part One

Unfortunately for Wallace Reid, actual treatment for drug addiction was still largely hit-or-miss in those days.  Many of the clinics that offered drug treatment were run by hucksters offering “cures” that tended to be worse than the disease.   In Reid’s case, he was sent to the Oakland sanitarium run by Doctor Charles Blessing.  What little information I was able to dig up on this clinic suggests that it probably wasn’t the best choice for someone trying to recover from a drug addiction.  Blessing happened to be a disciple of another doctor, Scott Barker, inventor of the “Barker Cure”.  This “cure” involved  giving recovering drug addicts a cocktail of unidentified pills and medications and a diet to “extract the poisons in the system”   The rationale for this “cure” appeared to be getting the addict off of one kind of drug by addicting them to another.  

The clinic had reportedly been recommended to Reid’s family by another Hollywood star, Juanita Hansen, who credited the Barker Cure for ending her addiction to cocaine and morphine.    Despite this testimonial, the treatment Wallace Reid received at Blessing’s clinic did nothing to improve his health.   In fact, he began wasting away, possibly due to the effects of the drug cocktail he was getting at the clinic.  

After six weeks, Dorothy Davenport had him transferred to a private hospital to start drying out completely.   Not long after Reid was removed from Blessing's clinic, Doctor Barker was arrested for supplying narcotics to his patients.  In one news story I found describing Barker’s arrest, colleagues reported that he had boasted of being offered $25,000 if he succeeded in curing Reid’s addiction.  Dorothy Davenport quickly attempted spin control by emphatically denying that her husband had ever been Barker’s patient.   In the meantime, Charles Blessing quietly went on the lam and his clinic was closed as well.

On January 18, 1923, not long after the story about Doctor Barker’s arrest broke, Wallace Reid died following a heart attack.   He had suffered from pneumonia in his final months and his body had apparently been weakened by years of addiction.   To keep him from being labelled as just another drug addict,   press agents at Reid’s studio portrayed him as a tragic hero and even released what were supposedly his last words to his wife, “Tell them Mamma, I have won my fight – that I have come back.”   

Dorothy Davenport, suddenly cast in the role of the grieving widow, was described as “engaging in the toughest fight a woman ever had.”   Her emotional breakdown after her husband’s death, along with pictures of her and her two children during Reid’s very public funeral all made for good press.  

In the meantime, Will Hays came under fire for his supposed role in allowing drugs to infiltrate Hollywood.  Newspaper editorials demanded that he “do something” about the problem of drug addiction to prevent further tragedies like Wallace Reid.  Some of these editorials claimed that there were millions of drug addicts across the United States and that police were helpless in dealing with the new epidemic of drug crime (nobody bothered to question these exaggerated figures).   Five days after Reid’s death, Hays announced that the drug investigation launched to deal with narcotics rings in Hollywood had concluded that the rumours were false.   

Since these reassurances did little to stem the anti-drug hysteria stirred up by the death of the popular Reid, both Hays and Reid’s studio insisted on more.   Within months of Wallace Reid’s death, a new film was released that was supposedly intended as a memorial to Reid.  Titled Human Wreckage, this new film was intended to warn about the dangers of addiction.  It also represented a model for the anti-drug propaganda films that Hollywood would be expected to release from that time onward.  

Dorothy Davenport starred in the movie as well as acting as one of the directors and she told reporters that it was meant to warn moviegoers about “the insidious, poisonous serpent that has wormed its way into the bosom of our nation.”  In the movie, she played the wife of an attorney who is victimized by drug dealers and manages to overcome addiction.  The movie began with a prologue showing opium being grown in Asia’s poppy fields and being smuggled through Mexico to be sold to soldiers and children (what this had to do with her husband, who supposedly received his morphine from legal sources, I’ll leave up to the imagination). 

The movie ended with Davenport pleading with the audience to support her and her campaign to wipe out the “narcotic menace in the United States.”  Along with some of the most prominent members of Los Angeles society, the movie also featured Wallace Reid’s children to show the human cost of drug abuse. 

Whatever you might think of the heavy-handed drug message of the movie today, Human Wreckage yielded a tidy profit for its producers while spreading the message that Hollywood was dedicated to stamping out drug abuse.    And so, the Hollywood spin machine had successfully turned Wallace Reid into a tragic hero and capped the rumours about drugs in the movie industry.   

As for Dorothy Davenport, or “Mrs. Wallace Reid” as she insisted on being known professionally after her husband’s death, she made a later career of making “message” films and generally capitalizing on her status as a tragic widow.  She never remarried and eventually went bankrupt after one of her films got her sued.  She died in 1977 and is buried with her husband in Glendale, California.

In the years following Reid’s death, new scandals would blow up over the drug and alcohol addiction of other stars including Barbara La Marr, Mabel Normand, and Alma Rubens within just a few years of Wallace Reid’s death.   These new scandals put pressure on Hollywood studios to release even more anti-drug movies highlighting the evils of addiction.  The standard formula, as laid down by the Hays Code and the Hollywood studios, was that drug addicts would be portrayed as either tragic victims or crazed dope fiends preyed on by evil drug pushers.

Many of these films have since become cult classics due to the often-shrill rhetoric and bizarre misinformation they presented to moviegoers.   These include Reefer Madness (also known as Tell Your Children), Assassin of Youth, The Cocaine Fiends, Marihuana: The Weed With Roots in Hell, and Narcotic (all produced in the 1930s).    

And this was the kind of message that would be relentlessly presented to movie audiences for decades after Wallace Reid’s death.   Though we may never be certain how much of an impact these movies had on drug attitudes across most industrialized countries, the Hollywood studio system ensured that the message met the standards laid down by Will Hays and his supporters.

Whatever the reality of drug abuse off the screen, any representation of drug abuse of being anything but destructive was completely taboo.   As for the stars who developed substance abuse problems in real life, they were left with the choice of either attending very discreet treatment clinics or finding themselves blacklisted by the studios.  Few, if any, of these stars would receive the kind of tolerant treatment that Wallace Reid had enjoyed.   

The Hays Code would remain in place well into the 1960s when drug movies finally made a comeback. It may well be a coincidence that this same era of more liberal drug movies also saw increasing acceptance of drugs, at least in some places.   On the other hand, maybe it isn’t.

Whatever else you might make of the media circus surrounding Wallace Reid’s death, Hollywood, and the world, would never be the same again.

Death of a Movie Star (Part One of Two)

They called him “the screen’s most perfect lover” and a matinee idol.   Though Wallace Reid is largely forgotten today, nobody ever suspected that the scandal surrounding his 1923 drug death would shape the kind of movies Hollywood made about drug abuse for decades to come.

 With his powerful physique and rugged good looks, Wallace Reid was one of the first great stars of the silent screen era.  Beginning with his first film, The Phoenix, in 1920, Reid was also one of Hollywood’s golden boys, equally comfortable before the cameras as he was working behind the cameras as a writer, cameraman, and director (I tend to think of him as a silent film combination of Clark Gable, Clint Eastwood, and Harrison Ford). 

His marriage to actress Dorothy Davenport, quickly followed by the discreet adoption of an infant girl of, ahem, obscure origins, did nothing to detract from his reputation as a major heartthrob.  With romantic movie roles cast alongside glamorous starlets such as Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, and Geraldine Farrar, women of all ages crowded into movie theatres to see the handsome Reid in one role after another.

Ironically enough, Reid hated being thought of as a matinee idol.   “May the Lord forbid that anyone ever think I’m a matinee idol,” he said in one interview “If I ever thought I’d have that label attached to me, I’d start to direct tomorrow. That’s one reason why I like the race-track stuff— it gives me the chance to get mussed up and honest-to-goodness dirty!”   Reid’s racing movies, including The Roaring Road in 1919 to Excuse My Dust in 1920, also established him as a major action star making him one of the rare stars who appealed to men and women alike. 

Except…

An accident involving a train wreck that happened while he was filming The Valley of the Giants in 1919 left Reid in severe pain.  To keep the film on schedule, doctors prescribed large doses of morphine and, sure enough, Reid was addicted before long.   At least, that was the official story.   Most of the information relating to Reid’s drug use came from his wife, Dorothy Davenport who, to put it kindly, was not completely reliable due to the often contradictory stories she would provide the press about her husband.

Whatever the real cause of his addiction, Reid was regularly abusing drugs and alcohol by the early 1920s and he was hardly the only one.  Much like the rest of America coming to terms with easily available drugs which had only recently become illegal, many of the early Hollywood stars, despite appearing  beautiful and glamorous on the screen, had turned to drug use to help cope with the hectic work schedules forced on them by the studios.  For Wallace Reid, that pressure was apparently relieved by morphine, alcohol, and perhaps some other drugs as well.  Through it all, he continued to make movies though meeting the demands of his fans and the studios became harder than ever.

On October 21, 1922, Reid was hospitalized for what studio sources described as a “nervous breakdown.”   According to film director Henry Hathaway, who had been working with Reid on what would be his final day as an actor:  “He sort of fumbled about, and bumped into a chair, and then just sat down on to floor and started to cry,”  Hathaway said.  “They put him in a chair, and he just keeled over. They sent for an ambulance and sent him to the hospital.”

While rumours of drug use had been circulating for months, his press secretary emphatically denied any suggestion that Reid was seriously ill.  The newspaper stories I’ve found tended to describe his condition as being a “nervous breakdown” though the details were sketchy at first.  The “official” story later released by the studio was that he was suffering from the ill-effects of the powerful lights used in filming and that his wife had taken him to the mountains to recover.  This story only worked for a while though.

After weeks of misinformation (including planted news stories of Reid at the Mayo Clinic, “recovering” at a mountain retreat, etc.”), the full extent of Reid’s drug problem because public knowledge.  Not only had years of drug and alcohol abuse ravaged his body, but he was also dealing with the effects of a weakened immune system.   Despite the newspaper coverage describing the valiant Reid “fighting for his life,” public revelations about his drug use created a major problem for Reid’s studio and threatened to provoke a backlash against the entire Hollywood film industry.  

Just a short time earlier, Will H. Hays had become President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and charged with “cleaning up” Hollywood.   After major sex scandals involving stars such as Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Hays had established what later become known as the “Hays Code” establishing rigid rules of conduct for actors on and off the screen.   Though this initially applied only to inappropriate sexual behaviour, changes in the laws relating to narcotics meant that Hays was obliged to crack down on drug and alcohol use as well.

Not surprisingly, the newspaper stories leaking details of what was happening downplayed any suggestion that Wallace Reid was an addict.  No, he was in recovery.   According to the Los Angeles Time article titled, “Narcotics Given Up,” Reid was described as making a “determined attempt to win out over drugs and alcohol.”   Reid’s alcohol problems were blamed on “uninvited guests” who insisted on conducting wild parties at his house and he had been too polite to kick them out.    His wife, Dorothy Davenport described her husband as a “sick, sick, boy.”   She went on to say that “he has broken his habit and won his fight. He made this fight of his own free will and has won it by the strength of his own mind and will. I know that he will come back.” 

But the story had become much bigger than Wallace Reid.  Immediately after the public announcement of his addiction, newspaper stories came out speculating about “Hollywood dope parties.”  Some “insiders” accused studio executives of encouraging drug use in stars to make them more manageable.  

Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, who was already notorious for her role in the Harry Thaw scandal that broke a few years previously, made new headlines with talk of a “Hollywood dope hell.”   Saying that “a dope peddler and their victims are waiting there at every corner, in every home, at every party, for a chance to trap another victor,”  she described parties she attended where cocaine was served to guests in a large bowl.  Thaw also claimed that she had become addicted as well, courtesy of the Hollywood studio machine.  

Though few Hollywood insiders took Thaw’s claims seriously, her story, on top of all the other rampant speculation about what was happening behind the scenes, was a major public relations disaster for the studios.  Will Hays, the man  who was supposed to be in charging of cleaning up the movie industry, placed his own reputation on the line by publicly promising that he would end any narcotics trafficking still happening in Hollywood.   As for Wallace Reid, Hays insisted that he should be treated as an invalid rather than a criminal.   He also added that should “not be censured or shunned. Rather, let us all sanely and sympathetically try to help him, try to restore him to health.”

Except that Reid’s drug problem appeared to far worse than what his family had been telling the press.   They admitted to the morphine addiction but rumours circulated that he was also abusing heroin as well.  

Even though heroin had been legally available as a pain reliever only a few years before, things were very different by the 1920s.   The crackdown on narcotics, not to mention the junkie subculture that flourished after World War I, had made the buying and selling of heroin a criminal offense.    While morphine could still be legally obtained, heroin was a “criminal’s drug” that only true “dope fiends” would take.   Only two years earlier, a young scriptwriter, Claude Tyner Waltman, had been arrested for selling heroin right on the studio lot and Reid was rumoured to have been one of his customers.

There were also rumours that Reid had been heavily involved in the New York drug scene (New York being the centre of the heroin trade at the time) though his wife flatly denied this.   She insisted that her husband was a morphine addict only and would never attend “dope parties” (she later backtracked and admitted that he had been to “a couple”).   By insisting that his morphine addiction was caused by his injuries, Reid’s family managed to portray him as a tragic victim despite rumours that he was relapsing.  One report even had him slipping away from his nurses and sneaking into Los Angeles to buy an ounce of morphine for $300 (just to give you an idea of how much street drugs were going for in 1922).  Dorothy Davenport denied that rumour too.

But their ordeal was only just beginning.

To be continued

 

 

Surviving the Essex Disaster (Part 3 of 3)

Continued from Part 2

By February 6, Captain Pollard and the three seamen with him were in a desperate situation. The last of their food was gone and starvation seemed certain. The youngest crewmember, Charles Ramsdell, then suggested that they draw lots to see who would be killed so that the others could eat.  While not unheard of in other cases of survival at sea, the idea was especially repugnant to the Nantucket crewmen, most of whom were Quakers. George Pollard initially rejected Ramsdell`s suggestion, he eventually reconsidered when one of the other survivors, Owen Coffin (who also happened to be his cousin), urged him to change his mind. They cut up a piece of paper and placed the scraps in a hat to choose who would die.

As it happened, Owen Coffin was the one picked although Pollard offered to take his place. They then drew lots to see who would shoot Chase. It was Charles Ramsdell, his best friend. While Ramsdell refused to follow through, Coffin insisted that the lot had been fair and that he was ready to die. The execution went through as scheduled. As for Owen Chase and the survivors in the first boat, the same harsh decision to resort to cannibalism fell to them when one of their survivors, Isaac Cole, died on February 8. After a day of deliberating, they butchered the body and ate it. Chase would later write that there was “no language to describe the anguish of our souls in this dreadful dilemma”.   Not only had they resorted to eating a crewmember to survive but it seemed certain that any one of them would be next. 

As for the survivors on Owen Chase’s ship, they  were on the verge of giving up completely although they continued on their course.   Their unexpected rescue by the English whaleship Indian, eighty-nine days after their ordeal began, must have seemed like a dream. As they pulled their small boat  alongside the ship, all that Chase could say when the Indian’s captain hailed them was  “Essex..whaleship…Nantucket”.   When Captain William Crozier saw the state of the three survivors, he burst into tears.  Too weakened to climb aboard on their own, the Indian’s crew hauled them up and carried them to the captain’s cabin. As he regained his strength, Owen Chase was astonished to discover that they had successfully traveled 2,500 miles over open sea and had managed to remain on course the entire way. Strangely enough, the tiny whaleboat that had carried them so far and which was being towed behind the Indian, was lost in a storm just a few days after the rescue.

The boat carrying George Pollard and Charles Ramsdell (the only two left) managed to stay on course  as well even though the last of their food was gone. The only thing preventing starvation were the remaining bones of their crewmates which they cracked open for the marrow. Too weak to maintain a proper watch, they were hardly aware of the Nantucket whaleship Dauphin which picked them up on February 23.   For the Dauphin’s crew, the sight of a whaleboat with two nearly-dead men surrounded by numerous human bones must have seemed nightmarish. In the numerous stories later spread about the Essex survivors, the most ghoulish detail was that they had been found “sucking the bones of their dead mess-mates, which they were loath to part with”.

Like the other survivors, Pollard and Ramsdell were lifted on board and carefully nursed back to health. Making a rapid recovery, George Pollard described his experiences in complete detail (including the murder of Owen Coffin). One captain hearing the story, Aaron Paddack, was moved enough to write down Pollard’s story which he called “the most distressing narrative that ever came to my knowledge”.    While the five Essex survivors were safe, the legacy of what they had been forced to do to survive would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Even after they arrived in the Chilean port of Valparaiso, Chase and his fellow survivors made no attempt to keep their cannibalism a secret. After a few days of recovery in Valparaiso, the three men were transferred to the U.S. frigate, Constellation and placed under the care of the ship’s doctor who oversaw their recovery.

The captain and crew of the Constellation were so horrified by their skeletal appearance that they took up a collection for them. Along with the money raised by the Constellation as well as funds donated by American and British citizens living in Valparaiso, more than five hundred dollars were collected for the Essex survivors. But their ordeal wasn’t over yet.  Three months of starvation had damaged their bodies profoundly and their recovery would be slow. Not long after they arrived in Valparaiso, Chase and the others were astounded to learn from another whaling ship that Pollard and Ramsdell had survived as well. Finally, on March 17, the whaleship Two Brothers arrived in Valparaiso and the five survivors were reunited for the first time since their boats had become separated.

Although Pollard suffered an immediate relapse after arriving, he and the others kept their promised to the survivors who had remained behind on Henderson Island. They were later found, alive but dehydrated by an Australian trading vessel at the request of the Constellation’s commander.   As for the final whaleboat that had become separated from the others, the survivors on board were never seen again although a whaleboat containing four skeletons would be found on a distant island years later. The remains were never positively identified.

News of the Essex disaster reached Nantucket before the survivors did. Although Pollard and Ramsdell were initially listed as the only survivors, the fact that there were several other survivors was slim consolation to the families of the ones who had been lost. The grim details of their ordeal, including the cannibalism, made for an awkward homecoming for the survivors.     George Pollard had the most difficult time of all. When he finally reached Nantucket, two months after the others, he had to explain the loss of the Essex to the ship’s owners (as captain, he had primary responsibility for his vessel). He also had to face his own aunt, the mother of Owen Coffin. Not surprisingly, she never spoke to him again after he brought her son’s last message to her.

The rest of the closely tied Nantucket community rallied around Pollard and the other Essex survivors who were eventually allowed to get on with their lives. George Pollard impressed his fellow seamen enough with his courage to be offered the captaincy of a new ship, the Two Brothers and set sail just three months after returning to Nantucket.    In 1823, Pollard’s new ship struck a coral reef and sank although there was no loss of life this time. Due to his reputation for bad luck , no shipowner would ever trust him with another command. He eventually lived out his days as a night watchman in Nantucket. The other survivors didn’t make out any better and most of them had to sign on to new ships just to support themselves (the loss of the Essex had left them almost penniless).

Owen Chase, desperate to support his family, put out a book about the Essex sinking which came out within a few months of his return. The mostly ghostwritten book presented Chase in as positive a light as possible and George Pollard felt particularly insulted over how he had been portrayed. The rest of the Nantucket community hated the book as well and Chase was obliged to sign on to a new ship well away from Nantucket.    He eventually e stablished himself as a successful sea captain with a reputation for fearsomely hunting the whale that had sunk the Essex. Although all of the survivors were able to return to their regular lives eventually, the trauma of what they had faced haunted them for the rest of their lives. The story of the Essex sinking and the plight of its survivors became a maritime legend for the rest of the 19th century.

Although Nantucket’s whaling industry wouldn’t survive more than a few decades after the Essex sinking, Owen Chase’s book and the accounts of the other Essex survivors would have a major impact on literature. Edgar Allen Poe based his 1837 short story, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym on the Essex sinking.   The most literary work based on the Essex disaster was by Herman Melville who served on the whaleship Acushnet with Owen Chase’s son. Inspired by the story of Chase’s survival and his quest to find the rogue whale responsible for destroying his ship, Melville wrote his own 1851 classic, Moby Dick  (he based his Captain Ahab character on Chase).

While Melville’s book was a financial and critical failure during his lifetime, Moby Dick has ensured a form of immortality for the Essex seamen and helped keep their story alive.   More recently, Nathaniel Philbrick won the 2000 National Book Award for In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.   His gripping book brought the Essex disaster to life for a new generation of readers and is currently in development for a movie adaptation starring Chris Hemsworth.

Whether Hollywood can do justice to the full story of the Essex disaster remains to be seen...

How to Survive a Slasher Film

Ever since John Carpenter's horror classic film, Halloween (link is external) first premiered in 1978, the slasher film has been a familiar staple for horror movie viewers. In the decades that followed, there have been an astonishing number of slasher films though they all tend to follow the same basic formula.  

This includes scenes of graphic violence, usually featuring a (typically female) protagonist attempting to stay alive while a faceless evil stalked and killed all the other victims, often in bizarre and creative ways. Despite the gratuitous violence and  stereotypical cliches relating to sexism, slasher films have a strange popularity with movie audiences and have even made unlikely film stars out of relentless killers such as Freddy Krueger (link is external) and Jason Voorhees (link is external).

It is hardly surprising that movie producers keep coming out with new releases considering how profitable slasher films have been over the years. The original Friday the Thirteenth (link is external) movie was produced in 1980 with only a $550,000 budget but went on to become a cult classic that would spawn multiple sequels.

One recurring theme of these slasher films that has taken on a tongue-in-cheek fame all its own involves the Final Girl (link is external) (or, sometimes the Final Boy). In these films, there tends to be a double-standard involving sexuality with male characters usually being portrayed as promiscuous and sexually aggressive while female characters are often  either "good girls" or "bad girls" depending on their own sexual behaviour.

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

Sacrificing Edith (Part One of Two)

On May 1, 1879, Charles F. Freeman plunged a knife into his five-year-old daughter, Edith,  apparently believing that it was God's will.   As his wife would later testify, he then walked the room with her dead body as he prayed and wept   Afterward, he  took the body to bed with him and kept it with him all night.   On the following day, Freeman then gathered his fellow worshipper together and proclaimed that God would raise her up on the third day.   He didn't.

Charles Freeman was a farmer who lived with his wife and two children in the tiny village of Pocasset, Massachusetts (now part of the township of Bourne).   Having converted to  Second Adventistism a year before, Freeman had become a leader among the local believers and was well-known for his fiery sermons.  The Second Adventism movement was a radical offshoot of the Adventist church founded by Willliam Miller in 1844.   After the Great Disappointment, when Miller's apocalyptic predictions failed to materialize, the sect which Charles Freeman joined continued to preach the imminent coming of Christ.   Along with their message of salvation, the Second Adventists also fanatically proclaimed that God would send signs to announce Christ's Second Coming.

As for Charles Freeman, he became convinced that God had a special purpose for him, both as a missionary to the unbelieving and to rally those believers whose faith was lagging.   Believing that he needed to make a great sacrifice to prove God's power, Freeman became inspired by the story of Abraham being called on to sacrifice his son Isaac.   He wouldl later report that two weeks before Edith's murder, he had heard God commanding him to sacrifice a member of his family.   After discussing this command with his wife (whom he ordered not to "stand in the Lord's way"), the only question remaining was who was to be sacrificed.   As Freeman would later report, though he prayed that he would be the one chosen, he was told in a dream that his daughter, Edith, was the one who had to be killed.   Edith was the youngest in the family and the favourite child which presumably made her the ultimate test of her father's faith.

While his wife Harriet objected to Edith's death,  she gave in eventually when Freeman insisted that God would either reconsider at the last moment (as in the story of Abraham and Isaac), or else Edith would be resurrected on the third day.   After the older daughter, Bessie, was taken out of the room by her mother,  Freeman then carried out his murder plan.

On the following day, Charles Freeman called together all of his fellow sect members and told them what he had done.   While he had described his plan for a great sacrifice, nobody had any idea what he had intended to do.   Amazingly enough, the fellow-worshippers declared that Freeman had been right to carry out such an act of faith and praised him for it.   They also agreed that God would raise Edith up on the third day as a sign for the unbelievers. 

What followed was a bizarre "wake" (in every sense of the word) as Freeman and his followers waited for Edith to be resurrected.    In an interview with a local newspaper, Edith's grandmother asked the reporter not to say anything to the surviving child about her sister's death.   The rationale appeared to be that Edith would be resurrected soon enough with no harm done.    When nothing happened on the third day (or afterward), the sect members were genuinely astonished.  Some even went so far as to accuse God of breaking His promise with Freeman by not raising Edith.  Not surprisingly, Charles Freeman had already been arrested for his daughter's murder.

The funeral for Edith Freeman was widely attended.   According to the newspaper description,  the Methodist church where the funeral was held was packed to capacity with hundreds more standing outside the building.   The Adventists were all in attendance, most keeping an eye on Edith's coffin hoping for a last-minute miracle, and the tension between the Adventists and the rest of the community was understandably high.   After the pastor lectured the Adventists on their false beliefs, the new Adventist leader (replacing Freeman who was in jail), Alden P. Davis, was prevented from making a speech under threat of arrest. 

Not deterred, Davis managed to make his speech in the churchyard after the service.   The speech, whch contained a stirring endorsement of Charles Freeman and his sacrifice, stirred up the crowd even further  and many in there talked about killing him.   While no violence broke out, it was likely a near thing.    Even other evangelists expressed their horror at the murder.  An editorial in the New York Evangelist published shortly afterward stated that,

"We hope that this murderer would be treated as all murderers should be, and that it will not be admitted that religious fanaticism is to justify human sacrifices. The law expressly holds that crime committed while a man is intoxicated as if the man was sober; and so Mormons, Adventists, and Spiritualists should be held responsible for offences against law, notwithstanding their pretended revelations of a higher law. There is no safety in society if any other principle prevails.

All that remained was to decide what to do with Edith's parents.   Though his wife was regarded as a willling participant in Edith's death, she was later released and Charles Freeman was indicted for murder.  

Continue to Part Two

 

 

 

 

The Movie Murderer

In 1995, a 14-year  boy, Sandy Charles, lured a 7-year old acquaintance into some bushes near their homes in the town of La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan under the pretext of playing a baseball game with him.    With the help of an unnamed 7-year old accomplice, Charles then stabbed and bludgeoned Jonathan Thimpsen.   After the murder,  Sandy  Charles then mutilated the body by removing strips of skin which he took home to place in a tin can covered in foil.   An intense search of the area by friends and family led to Jonathan's body being found three days later.   After an investigation, Sandy Charles was arrested.

As Charles would later admit to investigators, he boiled the skin on the family stove to reduced the fat to liquid but had refrained from actually drinking it stating that, "I just wanted to stay the way I am."   According to testimony later presented in court, Jonathan had been selected at random so that his fat could be harvested based on a scene from the 1989 movie, Warlock.    The movie, featuring a 17th century warlock who travels to the future, includes an off-camera murder of a young boy so that his fat could be extracted to make a potion enabling the warlock to fly.    According to Sandy Charles' mother, her son had become obsessed with the movie and saw it more than ten times.    While he admitted committing the crime to her, he also insisted that he could not stop himself.  "He said it was like a dream. He said he didn't want to do it, but it was like it wasn't him doing it", she reported.   He also later said that "There's a strong spirit in my room that gave me these thoughts.   I was going to commit suicide until this thing popped into my head. I started thinking about killing someone else. Something wanted me to." 

The killing of Jonathan Thimpsen and the subsequent publicity of Charles' trial generated international publicity given the age of the victim and the perpetrator as well as the bizarre circumstances involved.    The RCMP officers investigating the murder concealed many of the details for fear of possible "mass hysteria."     In a public statement before the trial began, RCMP Corporal Dave Hoefl refused to provide full details about the murder due to the possible impact on jury selection.  "When you take a look at a 14-year-old doing this to a seven- year-old, there has to be a reason.  There is a reason. We just have to decide whether it's in the public interest to know that reason right now," he said.   "I'm not sure whether the community is ready for this or not - and in reality, I don't even think the province is ready for it."   Based on the circumstances of the crime,  Sandy Charles was tried for  murder in an adult court.

During the trial, his defense attorney, Barry Singer, insisted that Charles was not guilty due to mental illness and that the movie had a powerful effect on his mind.  "In the movie, the idea was that if you cut the fat off a virgin, unbaptised child, then boiled it down and drank it. That would give you the power to fly," said Singer.  "Sandy was suffering from the delusion that if he did these things, it would give him the power to fly. The movie just gave him the know-how to do it."    Following the lurid testimony given during the trial, Sandy Charles was later found guilty by reason of insanity on August 2, 1996.  He was transferred to the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon where he was held until earlier this year when he applied to be transferred to a secure psychiatric unit closer to his home.  

As many expected, the trial generated considerable debate concerning the link between movie violence and real-life crimes.    In their coverage of the murder, the Toronto Globe and Mail cited experts who warned against drawing general conclusions from the murder but also warned that violent movies could be a "precipitating event" for an already troubled child.    Based on concerns relating to movie violence as well as a petition in the early 1990s calling for an end to violence on television, the Canadian government passed legislation forcing cable companies to enable parents to block violent programs  deemed unsuitable for  children.  Similar legislation was passd in the United States months later.

The debate concerning the potential impact of media violence on impressionable children is a longstanding one.   During the 1950s, Fredric Wertham's crusade against violence in comic books led to the implementation of the Comics Code Authority while similar crusades against violence in video games, music lyrics, and the Internet have had limited successs.    Concerns over the potential impact of inappropriate content in movies and television programs has generated considerable controversy over the years due to concerns about children modeling their behaviour on graphic violence seen on screen. 

Moral panics over violent movie and television content remain a familiar phenomenon, especially as new, shocking media depictions of graphic violence help inspire  to calls for greater censorship.   Certainly the number of films that have faced censorship over the years  in the United States alone, often for minor scenes that would likely have gone unnoticed by the audiences supposedly being protected, is mind-boggling.   In other countries, battles over movies such as A Clockwork Orange led to either outright censorship or awkward compromises with movies being either dramatically reedited or removed from distribution altogether.   Though changing social standards and legal challenges led to a reevaluation of many of the production codes that controlled movie content for decades, the battle over what can be shown on the screen is far from over.  

But does media violence really lead to youth violence?  Though Albert Bandura's classic Bobo Doll experiments suggest that children tend to imitate aggressive behaviours that they see being modeled,  the impact of observational learning as it applies to movie and television violence seems more muted.   No clear causal link between media violence and real-life crimes has ever been found despite decades of media violence research.   Certainly the rise in movie and television violence of the past two decades has not led to a similar increase in real-life violence.  If anything, there has been a sharp decrease in violence during that same period, especially among adolescents.   Though school shootings and other examples of extreme violence appear to inspire copycat offenses, most young people appear perfectly capable of distinguishing between fictional violence and the real thing.  

A more controversial theory about media violence deals with the idea of catharsis, or using violent media content to purge viewers of their violent thoughts or fantasies.   The term "catharsis" was first coined by Aristotle who suggested in his Poetics that watching violent Greek tragedies helped audiences "through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions".   In other words, watching violent movies or television shows made people less inclined to commit violent acts.    This was in direct opposition to Plato's view that plays, music, and literature had a potentially harmful affect on morals (thus making him the first moral crusader).     Along with being a common theme in literature, catharsis has also been adopted by psychonalysts such as Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud

While most moral panics surrounding media violence tend to peter out fairly quickly, new panics often arise to take their place.   Though cases such as Sandy Charles continue to be invoked as a justification for greater control over media content, actual evidence to support such control is often lacking.    More graphic cases of copycat violence can definitely be expected in future but the knee-jerk reaction and the calls for control will likely follow the same old pattern.